1 Market Order and Panopticism Paper presented at the Heterodox Economics Conference, London, 7-8 July 2001 Massimo De Angelis Department of Economics University of East London Longbridge Road Dagenham, Essex RM8 2AS UK [email protected]http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/M.DeAngelis 1. Introduction______________________________________________________ 2 2. Market order and Panopticism: the two principles stated ___________________ 5 Hayek' spontaneous order _________________________________________________ 5 Designed Vs spontaneous order ___________________________________________________ 5 The Market ___________________________________________________________________ 9 Panopticism ____________________________________________________________ 15 A “new mode of obtaining power”.________________________________________________ 15 Modularity and productivity of power _____________________________________________ 18 Unwaged work of inspection_____________________________________________________ 19 The rest of the world ___________________________________________________________ 21 Collateral advantages __________________________________________________________ 22 3. Market and Panopticism: two overlapping orders. ______________________ 24 Conclusion: The market order as a Fractal-Panopticon _____________________ 36 References _____________________________________________________________ 39 Abstract The Panopticon is Jeremy Bentham's project of an inspection house that represents a model for the exercise of power and extraction of labour. Panopticism is the term used by Michel Foucault to refer to a principle that wants to establish the automatic functioning of power by means of an arrangement of activities and bodies through space, in which individuals are not subjects who specify the norms of their interrelations. Rather the norms governing their relations to the whole are pre-given and embedded within a mechanism. The market on the other hand, is the emerging control mechanism that, according to F.A. Hayek, allows the co-ordination of individuals plans.
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1
Market Order and Panopticism
Paper presented at the Heterodox Economics Conference, London, 7-8July 2001
Massimo De AngelisDepartment of EconomicsUniversity of East LondonLongbridge RoadDagenham, Essex RM8 2ASUK
2. Market order and Panopticism: the two principles stated ___________________ 5
Hayek' spontaneous order _________________________________________________ 5Designed Vs spontaneous order ___________________________________________________ 5The Market ___________________________________________________________________ 9
Panopticism ____________________________________________________________ 15A “new mode of obtaining power”.________________________________________________ 15Modularity and productivity of power _____________________________________________ 18Unwaged work of inspection_____________________________________________________ 19The rest of the world ___________________________________________________________ 21Collateral advantages __________________________________________________________ 22
3. Market and Panopticism: two overlapping orders. ______________________ 24
Conclusion: The market order as a Fractal-Panopticon _____________________ 36
The Panopticon is Jeremy Bentham's project of an inspection housethat represents a model for the exercise of power and extraction oflabour. Panopticism is the term used by Michel Foucault to refer to aprinciple that wants to establish the automatic functioning of power bymeans of an arrangement of activities and bodies through space, inwhich individuals are not subjects who specify the norms of theirinterrelations. Rather the norms governing their relations to the wholeare pre-given and embedded within a mechanism. The market on theother hand, is the emerging control mechanism that, according to F.A.Hayek, allows the co-ordination of individuals plans.
In this paper I argue that there is a common theoretical plane betweenthe market mechanism understood in Hayek's terms as a mechanism ofco-ordination of individual plans, and Bentham's principle ofpanopticism, understood as device for the enforcement of discipline,secure management of a multitude and extraction of labour. Thiscommon theoretical plane can be recognised once we discard Hayek'smetaphysical views on evolution, and compare Hayek's market andBentham's panopticon in terms of their rationales as mechanisms,rather than in terms of their genealogy. In section 2 I will review thebroad features of both Hayek's idea of market order and Bentham'spanopticism. In section 3 I discuss the overlapping between the twosystems, while in the conclusion I briefly discuss the implications ofthe common theoretical plane between these two apparently oppositesystems. Here I suggest that the current global market order can betheorised in terms of a “fractal-panopticon”, that is a series ofoverlapping and interrelated virtual "inspection houses" in whichcompetition and the configuration of property rights combine toconstitute a global disciplinary mechanism in the form of marketfreedom.
1. Introduction
The market and the Panopticon seem to inhabit two different
universes. The first one is the galaxy of freedom, the order of a
cosmos, emerging as an unintended result of the interaction of choices
freely made by individuals. The other is the constellation of dungeons,
the taxis designed by the freedom of the planner that hold with a grip
the lives of the subjects of the plan and who has a project in mind and
wants it to put it to work. Hayek, the paladin of market freedom and
spontaneous order, has no kind words for Jeremy Bentham and his
likes, the rationalist constructionists with their designed orders1.
(Hayek 1988: 52)
1 “Long before Auguste Compte introduced the term `positivism’ for the view thatrepresented a `demostrated ethics’ (demonstrated by reason, that is) as the only
3
Yet, in this paper I argue that there is a common theoretical
plane between the market mechanism understood in Hayek's terms as
a mechanism of co-ordination of individual plans, and Bentham's
principle of panopticism, understood as device of discipline, secure
management of a multitude and extraction of labour. This common
theoretical plane can be recognised once we discard Hayek's
metaphysical views on evolution,2 and compare Hayek's market and
Bentham's panopticism as two given mechanisms, their rationales
rather than their genealogy.
To my knowledge, this commonality has never been highlighted
by a comparative analysis. There is of course a good reason for this.
The two authors belong to two different strands of liberal thinking,
Bentham regarded by Hayek a rationalist constructivist who, together
with Descarted, Hobbes and Rousseau, held the “erroneous
conception” that societies can give itself “laws" in accordance to some
high principle of justice. (Hayek 1973: 95) While for utilitarianism,
optimisation of pleasure provides the only rule by which to judge the
institutions governing human behaviour (“the greatest happiness for
possible alternative to a supernaturally `revealed ethichs’ (1854: I, 356), JeremyBentham had developed the most consistent foundations of what we now call legaland moral positivism: that is, the constructivistic interpretation of systems of law andmorals according to which their validity and meaning are supposed to depend whollyon the will and intention of their designers. Bentham is himself a late figure in thisdevelopment. This constructionism includes not only the Benthamite tradition,represented and continued by John Stuart Mill and the later English Liberal Party, butalso practically all contemporary Americans who call themselves `liberals’” (Hayek1988: 52).2 Hayek regards the emergence of capitalism as the result of a process of naturalevolution. He does not acknowledge the role of power, struggles and states in theemergence of property rights, for example through a variety of enclosures. On thispoint see Gray (1998: 151) and on the role of the state to shape markets see theclassic statement by Polanyi (1944).
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the greatest number”), for Hayek this rule would rely on the
assumption of omniscience, an assumption systematically challenged
by Hayek.
What sparked the interest in this comparison however, is that in
Bentham’s panopticon, unlike his general utilitarian philosophy,
omniscience is not a pre-given assumption, nor a result of the social
interaction organised by the panopticon. Instead, the need for the
panopticon as a mechanism of inspection arises, so to say, out of the
acknowledgement of the “central planner's” ignorance. Like the market
for Hayek, the panopticon provides a mechanism to overcome this
ignorance. Never in the taxis of the panopticon order there is the
presumption that power "knows it all", only that the inspected, the
unwilling participant in this order, would conceive power as
omniscient. On the other hand, power is this order acknowledges the
“tacit” aspect of this "knowledge of the inspected," and the panopticon
order is designed precisely to capitalise on this. Prima facie, therefore,
there are important similarities between Hayek’s and Bentham’s
systems. The similarities that emerged in an initial superficial
comparison are, I believe, confirmed when one analyses the two
systems in more details.
In section 2 I will review the broad features of both Hayek's idea
of market order and Bentham's panopticism. In section 3 I discuss the
overlapping between the two systems, while in the conclusion I briefly
discuss the implications of the common theoretical plane between
these two apparently opposite systems. Here I suggest that the current
5
global market order can be theorised in terms of a “fractal-panopticon”,
that is a series of overlapping and interrelated virtual "inspection
houses" in which competition and the configuration of property rights
combine to constitute a global disciplinary mechanism in the form of
market freedom.
2. Market order and Panopticism: the two principles stated
Hayek' spontaneous order
Designed Vs spontaneous order
Hayek's general theory of spontaneous order points out that
capitalism is the unintended outcome of the widespread observance of
certain "non-designed", non-planned norms. Hayek identifies an
important dualism between designed and spontaneous order, "a
profound tension between the goals of designed institutions and the
resulting spontaneity of an evolving order (Sciabarra 1995: 31)."3
This tension between two extreme ordering principles of individual
activities within a systemic whole constitutes the horizon of
intervention of Hayek's academic and political work.
3 Order on the other hand is defined as "a state of affairs in which a multiplicity ofelements of various kinds are so related to each other that we may learn from ouracquaintance with some spatial or temporal part of the whole to form correctexpectations concerning the rest, or at least expectations which have a good chanceof proving correct. It is clear that every society must in this sense possess and orderand that such an order will often exist without having been deliberately created"(Hayek 1973: 36).
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To put the problem of order at the centre and to point to its
spontaneous emergence implies a conceptualisation of the individual
as social individual. This is not only because
Living as members of society [we are] . . . dependent for the
satisfaction of most of our needs on various forms of co-
operation with others. (Hayek 1973: 36)
Adam Smith had already recognised this social dimension of
production. But unlike Smith and neoclassical economists'
Robinsonisms, Hayek's whole is more than the sum of its parts,
because it includes relations among them. In this order, " each element
affects and is affected by the others, jointly constituting and being
constituted by the whole" (Sciabarra 1995: 31). Because of these
relations, the whole is not apprehensible through a synoptic
understanding. The structure of social order can only be grasped from
a specific vantagepoint (Sciabarra 1995: 31).
We should not be enchanted by Hayek's social individual. The
latter is far from a transhistorical figure, it is a social individual of a
particular kind, defined ex post, after a given configuration of property
rights pose individuals as private individuals.
The problem of order emerges from this definition of individuals
as private (in Marx’s sense (1844), as alienated). By virtue of being
fragmented private individuals, they have expectations and plans that
do not mach. The "matching of the intentions and expectations that
determine the actions of different individuals is the form in which
order manifests itself in social life." (Hayek 1973: 36)
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This matching of expectations of private individuals can,
according to Hayek, be the result of two ordering principles, one that
"derives . . . entirely from the belief that order can be created only by
forces outside the system (or `exogenously’)." (Hayek 1973: 36) This is
the authoritarian ordering principle. The other, in which an equilibrium
or order "set up from within (or `endogenously) such as that which the
general theory of the market endeavours to explain. A spontaneous
order of this kind has in many respects properties different from those
of a made order.” (Hayek 1973: 36)
The superior character of spontaneous order in relation to
designed order resides in the use that this order makes of knowledge
in society (Gray 1998:28). Because “knowledge . . . exists . . . solely as
the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory
knowledge which all the separate individuals possess” (Hayek 1945:
77) then the
economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of
how to allocate `given’ resources — if `given’ is taken to mean
given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set
by these `data’. It is rather a problem of how to secure the best
use of resources known to any of the members of society, for
ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or,
to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge
which is not given to anyone in its totality. (Hayek 1945: 77-78)
The problem of social order thus is a problem of how social knowledge
is created and distributed among private individuals, what rules or
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patterns are created to connect and match their independent plans.4
Knowledge thus not only takes up the form of individual plans, private
purposes, but also that of praxis, of rules followed by private
individuals in their interaction5.
Private individuals follows three kinds of rules, and these "chiefly
negative (or prohibitory) rules of conduct . . .. make possible the
formation of social order". First, there are those “rules that are merely
observed in fact but have never been stated in words." Second, "rules
which we are able to apply, but do not know explicitly; (2) rules that,
through they have been stated in words, still merely express
approximately what has long before been generally observed in
action." Finally, third, there are those "rules that have been deliberately
introduced and therefore necessarily exist as words set out in
sentences." The problem with all kind of constructionists is that they "
would like to reject the first and second groups of rules, and to accept
as valid only the third group” (Hayek 1970: 8-9).
The first and second group of rules instead constitutes tacit
knowledge. It is precisely because of tacit knowledge that, according to
Hayek, a central authority cannot solve the co-ordination problem. The
4 Note that precisely because the starting point are private individuals, the problem ofco-ordination of individual plans is often the problem of co-ordination of conflictingplans. Let us make a classic example, the co-ordination problem arising out of twosocial figures, capitalists and workers. The workers have a plan, to get a wage. Hehas knowledge of how poor is life without it. The employers have knowledge of theconditions of the market. The mechanisms that coordinates their conflictingknowledge rooted in conflicting standpoints within society, is one that enable to co-ordinate their actions without disappointing the premises that are at the basis of theiractions.
5 Incidentally, therefore, the problem of social order in Hayek overlaps with thequestion of forces of production in a society.
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latter would not only face the impossible task to collect all the
information from individual agents including the tacit components, but
also it will have to feed back unto them the information necessary to
adjust individual plans to the central authority master plan. The only
way to solve this problem is through a mechanism that uses individual
knowledge, but at the same time in which each individual is ignorant of
the overall outcome. The solution is in the duality between individual
absolute sapience of (and engagement with) their private sphere and
purposes (which include tacit components), and individual absolute
ignorance of (and indifference to) the forms and outcome of their
interaction. The model is a characteristic model of utter systemic
opportunism; "I am only doing my job," says the Hayek's individual,
never pondering about the social meaning of that "job". That is, in what
ways and how that job is articulated within the whole.
The Market
Let us now see the qualities of `spontaneous order' understood
as market order. The market system is, according to Hayek, the best
example of this evolved set of institutions. It is an impersonal
mechanism with a problem to solve, that of co-ordinating individual
knowledge and plans. This problem is discernible only if we drop the
unrealistic assumptions of neoclassical economics that can show the
benefit of competition only in presence of an unlimited number of
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suppliers of a homogeneous commodity. 6 Unlike neoclassical
economics which discusses competition on assumptions that “if they
were true of the real world, would make it wholly uninteresting and
useless” — because if everybody knew about data, then competition
would result in a wasteful method of co-ordination among individuals
— Hayek proposes to consider competition as a “discovery procedure.”
(Hayek 1978: 179)
Mainstream economic theory cannot understand the true
function of competition, because its starting point is a given supply of
scarce goods. (Hayek 1978: 181) However, the discoveries of what and
how much to produce; the discovery of "which goods are scarce goods,
or which things are goods, and how scarce and valuable they are"
(Hayek 1978: 182); or the discovery of "minimum cost of production",
or of the desires and attitudes of unknown customers (Hayek 1946:
100-1; Hayek 1978:182); all this is precisely what the market is
supposed to find out. But note, this “finding out” by the market is at
the same time a material force. Scarcity is a produced result of market
interaction, not a presupposition. The process of competition on the
market creates needs and wants (and therefore the correspondent
lacks). Unlike the classical political economy tradition, prices are not
only the expression of past activity, but those information signals that
excites future activity, that allow individuals to focus their attention on
what is worth producing and what is not. The price system is a
6 Thus “it need hardly be said, no products of two producers are ever exactly alike,even if it were only because, as they leave his plant, they must be at different places.
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communication system. Knowledge which is widely dispersed through
society can thus become effectively utilised (Hayek 1978:181-182;
188), not simply as know-how necessary for the production of
individual commodities, but as a social force that makes it necessary to
produce in certain ways and for certain purposes.
This compulsory aspect embedded within Hayek's liberal
philosophy of freedom acquires a systemic character, and pervades the
context within which private individuals can exercise their liberty. By
letting themselves be guided by these common indicators (Hayek
1978: 60) private individuals have learnt to substitute abstract rules for
`the needs of known fellows’ and for coercive, imposed ends (ibid. 61).
In this condition, the individual's relation with the "other" is not direct,
but mediated by "a system of abstract relations" in which "individual
man can be directed by the private knowledge of his own purposes,
and not by the knowledge of other people’s needs, which is outside the
range of his perceptions." (Hayek 1978: 268)
The order brought about by the market is one that never reaches
the equilibrium position that neoclassical economists talk about, but in
a sense only always approximate it. This because individual plans
never end to mutually adjust through a series of negative feedback, the
same that Smith defined under the category of invisible hand and that
regulate prices in a market (Hayek 1978:184). Mutual adjustment of
expectation is only one of the unintended outcomes of the market
These differences are part of the facts which create our economic problem, and it islittle help to answer it on the assumption that they are absent.” (Hayek 1946: 98)
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order. The other is efficiency. The market in fact "also secures that
whatever is being produced will be produced by people who can do so
more cheaply than (or at least as cheaply as) anybody who does not
produce it . . . and that each product is sold at a price lower than that
at which anybody who in fact does not produce it could supply it”
(Hayek 1978:185).
These aggregate demand and supply curves of economic
analysis therefore, are not, in reality, pre-given, "but results of the
process of competition going on all the time" (Hayek 1978: 187). Thus
the formation of prices resembles the incessant and continuous
process of formation of socially necessary time that Marx (1867) is
referring to (De Angelis 1997). To the individual social singularities of
the market engaged in the process of competition, this process of
price formation embeds the duality of rewards and punishments of
disciplinary processes identified by Foucault (1977). Thus doing, Hayek
paints the social setting as a drawing that awaits the colouring of flesh
and blood power relations. The forces of social changes are portrayed
in their strategic setting, but the power relations within which these
forces are embedded are completely invisible. Power is left only as an
open implicit issue. Changes may occur only if
the few willing and able to experiment with new methods can
make it necessary for the many to follow them, and at the same
time to show them the way (Hayek 1978: 187; my emphasis).
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The ways to "make necessary" the "required changes in habits and
customs" are of course in principle endless, and all have to do with a
form of power. But implicit to Hayek’s point is that ultimately, there are
two camps: those who are for change and those who are not because it
is not in their interests. Competition creates the condition of a
continuous compulsion and for continuous resistance to this
compulsion:
The required discovery process will be impeded or prevented, if
the many are able to keep the few to the traditional ways. Of
course, it is one of the chief reasons for the dislike of competition
that it not only shows how things can be done more effectively,
but also confronts those who depend for their incomes on the
market with the alternative of imitating the more successful or
losing some or all of their income. Competition produces in this
way a kind of impersonal compulsion which makes it necessary
for numerous individuals to adjust their way of life in a manner
that no deliberate instructions or command could bring about
(Hayek 1978: 189).
But why is continuous “change” necessary? In presence of Hayek’s
rejection of a “hierarchy of ends” to evaluate human societies, the
criteria brought forward by Hayek that justifies this continuous
compulsion is the identification of an abstractly defined “progress” as
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an end in itself7. There are two implications of this. First, “competition
is valuable only because, and so far as, its results are unpredictable
and on the whole different from those which anyone has, or could
have, deliberately aimed at.” Second, “that the generally beneficial
effects of competition must include disappointing or defeating some
particular expectations or intentions.” (Hayek 1978: 180) The latter
means that in the functioning of the market order, (Hayek 1978: 185)
“a high degree of coincidence of expectation is brought about by the
systematic disappointment of some kind of expectations”. The market
order rewards some, punishes someone else. The continuous process
of compulsion and series of rewards and punishments "going on all the
time", that is, the process of competition, has the property identified
by Foucault (1977) as that of a "disciplinary mechanism". Bentham's
panopticon is also one of these devices.8
7 “Progress is movement for movement’s sake” (Hayek 1960: 41). This idealisation ofmovement for movement’s sake, irrespective of the direction of the movement, itssocial outcome, what is produced and how needs are formed and met, andirrespective of the nature of social interaction, makes Hayek the quintessentialcapitalist apologist. This philosophical stand is in fact the closest to what Marxidentifies as the nature of capitalism “production for production sake” oraccumulation for accumulation sake.” As the continuous process of accumulationimplies the continuos need for blind adaptation to its movement.8 It has been correctly argued that Hayek emphasis on progress for progress’ sakeinternalises also an important contradiction between “a conservative attachment toinherited social forms and a liberal commitment to unending progress” (Gray 1998:156). This contradiction is mostly revealed when the “unending progress” do actuallydestroys the authoritarian basis which helped to establish the premises of itsmovement, by, for example, destroying social cohesion through the undermining ofpatriarchal relations.
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Panopticism
A “new mode of obtaining power”.
Bentham certainly does not claim the panopticon to be an
emergent order. Prima facie, in his model of "inspection house" there
is little rhetoric of the evolution of freedom. The panopticon is
unmistakably an institution of confinement, and extraction of labour,
and one designed precisely for this double purpose.
As it is known, the panopticon is a circular building with at the
centre a watching tower with large windows. The peripheral ring is
subdivided in cells, each of which has a window facing the outside and
one window facing the tower. The light coming from the outside
window therefore, allows the occupants of each cells to be seen as in
many little shadow theatres (Foucault 1977), while the inspectors in
the central tower, protected by blinds and by an opposite source of
light, is at any time invisible to the eye of the occupants of cells.
The cover of the 1787 project boasts the general principle of the
panopticon (here called, following Foucault (1977), panopticism), which
applicability, according to Bentham, is generalisable to any
circumstance in which, to use Hayek’s terms, individual plans are not
matching. As described in the front cover, the panopticon contains
the Idea of a New Principle of Construction applicable to any Sort
of Establishment, in which Persons of any Description are to be
kept under Inspection. And in Particular to Penitentiary-Houses,
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Prisons, Houses of Industry, Work-Houses, Poor-Houses,
Manufactories, Mad-Houses, Hospitals, and Schools.
What prisoners, workers, poor, "mad" persons, patients, students have
in common is the fact that they need to be put under inspection,
because their individual "plans" do not match the plan that Bentham
has in mind for them. To a variety of degrees, they all share the same
desire of escaping from the particular confinement in which they are
put, and exercise less effort in the work that they are asked to perform.
Inspection fulfils this double role of maximisation of security and
minimisation of shirking. The innovation is in Bentham's opinion that
the principle of panopticism is generalisable to any situation in which
“persons of any descriptions” would tend to follow or make plans that
do not conform to a given norm, and therefore require to be kept
under inspection. The Penitentiary-House is just an application of the
Panopticon, in fact one “most complicated” in which “the objects of
safe-custody, confinement, solitude, forced labour, and instruction,
were all of them to be kept in view” (Bentham 1787:3).
In the preface, Bentham promises the solution of all problems
pertaining to different spheres (health, education, production,
economy, crime management, and public finance) through the
application of "a simple idea of Architecture!”, that is by a spatial
configuration of relations between bodies, through the arrangement of
bodies in space:
Morals reformed — health preserved — industry invigorated —
instruction diffused — public burthens lightened —Economy
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seated as it were upon a rock — the Gordian knot of the Poor-
Laws not cut but untied — all by a simple idea of Architecture!
(Bentham 1787: iii)
There is no doubt that this is a principle for the management of power
relations, and nothing else. In particular, it is a principle to increase the
power of the “inspectors” over the power of the “inspected” and thus
allowing the latter to be put into “useful use”. The norm is usefulness
of the inspected body. Without proper application of the panopticon’s
principle, “persons of any descriptions” would tend not to conform to a
given norm, and therefore require to be kept under inspection. This
"new mode of obtaining power, of mind over mind, in a quantity
hitherto without example" offered by the panopticon, is based on a
simple principle: “the centrality of the inspectors situation, combined
with the well known and most effectual contrivances for seeing without
being seen.” (Bentham 1787: 21)
This introduces immediately a quality in the relation of power.
Power is exercised not so much by the actual presence of the inspector
over the inspected. The inspected does not need to have full
knowledge of being inspected and the inspector does not have full
knowledge of the plans and behaviour of the inspected. In fact, this
"ideal perfection" is not possible, because it "would require that each
person should actually be . . . constantly . . . under the eyes of the
persons who should inspect them." Thus, "this being impossible, the
next thing to be wished for is, that, at every instant, seeing reason to
18
believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself to the contrary,
he should conceive himself to be so.” (Bentham 1787: 3)
This situation would enable “the apparent omnipresence of the
inspector . . . combined with the extreme facility of his real presence”
(Bentham 1787: 25). The conception, rather than the reality, of
constant surveillance is what gives the inspector a god-like character
(omnipresence). To paraphrase Hayek, Bentham knows that the
individual in authority in the name of the inspector cannot have
full knowledge of the inspected, his actions, and his plans. But
Bentham uses an architectural design to reverse this potential
ignorance and turn it into a potential knowledge to the inspector's
advantage.
Modularity and productivity of power
Another aspect of the generalisable character of the panopticon
principle is in the modularity of its constituent parts, the peripheral
ring, the central Tower, and the relations among them. This meant that
the principle of the panopticon could cover “an area of any extent.” For
example,
If the number of rotundas were extended to four, a regular
uncovered area might in that way be inclosed: and, being
surrounded by covered galleries, would be commanded in this
manner from all sides, instead of being commanded only from one.
The area thus inclosed might be either circular like the buildings, or
square, or oblong, as one or other of those forms were best adapted
19
to the prevailing ideas of beauty or local convenience. A chain of
any length, composed of inspection-houses adapted to the same or
different purposes, might in this way be carried round an area of
any extent. (Bentham 1787: 18)”
The panopticon therefore does not need a singular centre; it may well
be constituted by a series of centres, as long as they are integrated.
Another aspect of the panopticon is that it leads to an emergent
property, that of economy of scale in the production of inspection, the
"inspection force"
On such a plan, either one inspector might serve for two or more
rotundas, or, if there were one to each, the inspective force, if I may
use the expression, would be greater in such a compound building
than in any of the number, singly taken, of which it was composed:
since each inspector might be relieved occasionally by every other.
(Bentham 1787: 19)
It must be pointed out that this increased productivity of inspection
depends on the increased pervasiveness of the panopticon principle, to
see without been seen, once more “rotundas” are integrated. In other
words, the greater the number or integrated rotundas, the more
efficiently power can be organised through a panopticon principle. This
panoptical's "efficiency of scale" of inspections an important quality for
the fractal-panopticon discussed in the next section.
Unwaged work of inspection
20
As part of the increased efficiency of inspection, the Panopticon
also allows the co-optation of the inspector’s family unwaged labour.
Provided “that room be allotted to the lodge . . . for the principal
inspector . . . and his family, . . . the more numerous . . . the family,
the better; since, by this means, there will in fact be as many
inspectors as the family consists of persons, though only one be paid
for it.” (Bentham 1787: 23)
Bentham is very clear on why this should be the case, why would the
members of the family of the head inspector would want to perform
the duties of the family head. It is an utterly free choice, but one arises
out of a context that has been entirely engineered, planned, designed.
Neither the orders of the inspector himself, nor any interest which
they may feel, or not feel, in the regular performance of his duty,
would be requisite to find them motives adequate to the purpose.
Secluded oftentimes, by their situation, from every other object,
they will naturally, and in a manner unavoidably give their eyes a
direction conformable to that purpose, in every momentary interval
of their ordinary occupations. It will supply in their instance the
place of that great and constant fund of entertainment to the
sedentary and vacant in towns, the looking out of the window. The
scene, though a confined, would be a very various, and therefore
perhaps not altogether an unamusing one. (Bentham 1787: 20)
21
Here, what appears as leisure, entertainment from the perspective of
the family members, is turned into surveillance work. This free choice
based co-optation of the inspector's family work is very similar in
context in what we will see later the free-choice co-optation of the
prisoner's work.
The rest of the world
The principle of modularity of the Panopticon can also be seen in
another aspect. The Panopticon, a discrete building, can be interfaced
with the outside world through an administrative device, bookkeeping
and its publicity. In letter 9 Bentham envisages high rewards for those
who will manage the panopticon. The chosen contractor will be the one
who offers "the best terms." The contractor will be given “all the
powers that his interest could prompt him to wish for, in order to
enable him to make the most of his bargain; with only some
reservations . . .” (Bentham 1787: 39). This is the publicity of the
panopticon's accounts "the whole process and details of his
management: — the all history of the prison . . ." Bentham would
"require him" to publish accounts "on pain of forfeiture or other
adequate punishment . . . and that upon oath.”
The advantage of having this information is the institution of a
mechanism that signals profits and losses to the rest of the world, and
therefore enables a form of competition to take place. Bad
management is demonstrated by loss of profit “for it is one advantage
22
of this plan, that whatever mischief happens must have more than eat
out all his profits before it reaches me” (Bentham 1787: 41). The
publication of the accounts is a way to increase the productivity of
surveillance, its effectiveness, to maximise to the limit the panopticon
principle. It is the means through which the disciplinary mechanism set
in place can operate efficiently:
After such publication, who should I have then? I should have
every body: every body who, by fortune, experience, judgement,
disposition, should conceive himself able and find himself
inclined, to engage in such a business: and each person, seeing
what advantage had bee made, and how, would be willing to
make his offer in proportion. What situation more favourable for
making the best terms? (Bentham 1787: 42)
Collateral advantages
The panopticon also offers a series of important “collateral”
advantages. The first one is that the number of inspector required it is
relatively less than a comparable establishment (Bentham 1787: 25).
Second, the panopticon's principle also applies to all layers of the staff
forming the inspection force:
the under keepers or inspectors, the servants and subordinates of
every kind, will be under the same irresistible control with respect
to the head keeper or inspector, as the prisoners or other persons
to be governed are with respect to them. (Bentham 1787: 26)
23
This allows the panopticon be beneficial not only for the maximisation
of inmates' discipline, but also of the inspectors' discipline, because “in
no instance” (Bentham 1787: 26) could they either perform or depart
from their duty.” The panopticon therefore provides satisfactory
answer “to one of the most puzzling of political questions, quis
custodiet ipsos custodes?” Inspectors and inspected are both locked
into a mechanism of surveillance. The panopticon is "no less beneficial
to what is called Liberty than to necessary coercion; no less powerful
as a control upon subordinate power, than as a curb to delinquency; as
a field to innocence than as a scourge to guilt” (Bentham 1787: 27).
The panoption principle disciplines everyone, free and un-free.
The third advantage is a sanitised exercise of power, through the
elimination of “disgust” and risks of infection due to the face-to-face
interaction by making sure that the job of inspection is replaced by an
impersonal mechanism, a device with which those who exercise power,
can minimise to enter into contact with their subordinates.9
Finally, four, the panoptincon ought to be open to visitors so as
to give rise to a system of inspection. Again, Bentham here is referring
to the system’s ability to capitalise on the unintended results of
visitor’s action. The visitors, “without intending perhaps, or even
without thinking of any other effects of their visits, than the
9 “Another advantage . . . is the great load of trouble and disgust, which it takes offthe shoulders of those occasional inspectors of a higher order, such as judges, andother magistrates, who called down to this irksome task from the superior ranks oflife, cannot but feel a proportionable repugnance to the discharge of it” (Bentham1787: 27). The technology of power given by the panopticon, makes it possible toavoid entering the cells one by one to inspect. Thus, “by this new plan, the disgust is
24
gratification of their own particular curiosity” (Bentham 1787: 29) do
contribute to the system of competition. A multi-layer system of
inspection could emerge, in which "these spontaneous visitors" play
the unintended role of "superintendent, assistants, deputies" of the
inspectors "in so far as he is faithful" or "witnesses and judges, should
he ever be unfaithful, to his trust". The motives of the visitors are for
this purpose "perfectly immaterial; whether the relieving of their
anxieties by the affecting prospect of their respective friends and
relatives thus detained in durance, or merely the satisfying that general
curiosity, which an establishment on various account so interesting to
human feelings, may naturally be expected to excite” (Bentham 1787:
29).
The motivation of individual agents is irrelevant. What counts is
their role within a system of inspection. Whatever their intentions and
motivations to visit the establishment, by so doing they become
integrated within the purpose of a system of inspection, in which
everybody inspects everybody.
3. Market and Panopticism: two overlapping orders.
There are striking similarities and complementarities between Hayek's
and Bentham's systems. These are summarised in box 1, and
discussed below.
entirely removed; and the trouble of going into such a) room as the lodge, is no more
25
Box 1
Market and Panopticism: two overlapping orders
1. Genealogy.
In the first place, and very briefly, there are, quite surprisingly,
some genealogical similarities between the two mechanisms. While for
than the trouble of going into any other.” (Bentham 1787: 27-28)
1. Genealogy. Role of the planner in the design of the parametersof the mechanism.
2. Impersonal mechanism of co-ordination of individualsubjectivities (plans) for the maximisation of extraction of labour(Bentham) or maximisation of efficiency (Hayek).
3. Extension and integration. Possibility to generalise themechanism through the social field through modular properties(Bentham) or commodification.
4. Power has imperfect knowledge of individual plans.
5. The mechanism relies on freedom of private individuals (givena menu). Emphasis on co-optation of unintended consequences ofindividual freedom.
6. Individual confinement as condition of individual freedom. InBentham through cell's walls. In Hayek, through property rightswhich turn individuals into private individuals.
7. Mechanism of co-ordination (watchtower or competition)distributes punishments or rewards and is "invisible" to individuals.In Bentham, this is the power behind the watchtower, in Hayek it isthe emergent and ongoing compulsion of the competitive process.
8. Both mechanisms function through "shadowy projections" ofreal life activities. In the panopticon through light signals, incompetitive market through price signals.
26
Bentham the construction of this mechanism resides squarely on the
ingeniousness of the panopticon's planner, for Hayek, the market
would be an emergent order if it were not for those like Keynesians
and socialists, who put limits to the market evolution. But in Hayek, the
policy implication is the same as in Bentham: the role of the planner is
not that of co-ordinating individual action, but of producing the
conditions in which private individuals operate.10
2. Impersonal mechanism of co-ordination.
Both systems are impersonal mechanisms of co-ordination of
individual subjectivities that give form to social labour. The impersonal
aspect of the co-ordinating mechanism is enthusiastically boasted by
Bentham and it is a quality that makes it suitable to be applicable to a
large variety of social subjects “in need” for inspection. As we have
seen, in Hayek's market the emphasis is on abstract rules of conduct,
which bind together private individuals so as there is no need for them
to develop common aims.11 As impersonal mechanism, the market
frees individuals from the "need of known fellows" and yet allows them
to socially co-operate in their labour. There are also some important
parallels in the "aims" of this impersonal mechanism. For Bentham we
are clearly talking about a mechanism aimed at extraction of labour
and maximisation of profit (see letter 13 on "the means of extracting
10"Rational action is possible only in a fairly orderly world. Therefore it clearly makessense to try to produce conditions under which the chances for any individual takenat random to achieve his ends as effectively as possible will be very high — even if itcannot be predicted which particular aims will be favoured, and which not." (Hayek1978: 183)
27
labour" and the discussion below on individual freedom). For Hayek,
we can reach this conclusion only if we look at the process embedded
in the market order, rather than its end result.
For Hayek in fact, the end result of the market order (say a
particular distribution of income, or any other particular "still picture"
of the socio-economic condition) cannot be judged "by criteria which
are appropriate only to a single organised community serving a given
hierarchy of ends,” because such a hierarchy of ends is not relevant to
the "complex structure composed of countless individual economic
arrangements.” (Hayek 1978: 183) The word "economy" is in fact
inadequate to describe a multitude of individual ends because it refers
to "an organisation or arrangement in which someone deliberately
allocates resources to a unitary order of ends." Instead, the market
order, or catallaxy, does not have any particular end. But if this is the
case, “what, then, do we mean when we claim that [it] produces in
some sense a maximum or optimum?” If the market order cannot be
said to have a purpose,
it may yet be highly conducive to the achievement of many
different individual purposes non-known as a whole to any single
person, or relatively small groups of persons. Indeed, rational
action is possible only in a fairly orderly world. Therefore it
clearly makes sense to try to produce conditions under which the
chances for any individual taken at random to achieve his ends
as effectively as possible will be very high — even if it cannot be
11 On Hayek's abstraction see Gamble (1996: 44-46).
28
predicted which particular aims will be favoured, and which not.
(Hayek 1978: 183)
The catallactic order is the optimum condition within which individual
freedom can be organised. It is not possible to predict the result of this
discovery process because “the only common aim which we can
pursue by the choice of this technique of ordering social affairs is the
general kind of pattern, or the abstract character, of the order that will
form itself.” (Hayek 1978: 184)
If the market order cannot be judged for its ends, we can then
make an opinion of it by looking at it as an incessant process within
which social labour is caught. As we have seen, this process never
reaches the equilibrium position that neoclassical economists talk
about, because there is no pre-established equilibrium to reach. While
in orthodox welfare economics, the role of the market is that of a
“social computational device” (Kirzner 1973: 214) — which computes
pre-established hidden prices given perfect information — in Hayek the
role of the market as a discovery mechanism that communicate
information, creates reality.
Continual mutual adjustment of expectations brought about by
this discovery procedure allows the market order to generate efficiency
by securing that "whatever is being produced will be produced by
people who can do so more cheaply than (or at least as cheaply as)
anybody who does not produce it." (Hayek 1978:185)
Thus, if the market cannot be said to have a "unitary order of
ends", it prioritises a unitary rationale for human social interaction: the
29
endless promotion of efficiency, the endless unqualified “progress”, the
never ending rat race, the competitive compulsion that "goes on all the
time". This is not an external "end product" of Hayek's market order,
but its reason d'être.
3. Extendibility of the system.
Another similarity is in the potential spatial realm of the two
mechanisms. It is true that prima facie Bentham’s panopticon is a
closed system, clearly limited in space, while Hayek’s market order is
an open one, which spans over the social field without inherent limit.
Yet, Bentham micro-technology of power is generalisable thanks to the
modular properties of the panopticon, which allow a series of
watchtowers to be integrated so as to control larger areas (Bentham
1787: 18). Hayek’s market on the other hand, is the representation of
a social organism, but one whose dynamics of interactions among
individuals is particularisable to any area of the social field, as long as
individuals are turned into private individuals with "no need of known
fellow". The last three centuries of commodification of many spheres of
social life and its recent intensification are a clear extension of Hayek's
market principle. Therefore, though their starting sphere of application
is different, the two systems can be imagined as `convergent’.
4. Authority’s imperfect knowledge of individual plans
In both Bentham’s and Hayek’s order, power’s knowledge of
individual actions and plan is not perfect, and both orders’ rationale is
30
to tap into this knowledge. In both cases, this co-optation of
knowledge and tacit plans is at the basis of the system's maximisation
of efficiency. Within their respective orders, power’s acknowledgement
of its imperfect knowledge becomes an opportunity to profit.
5. Freedom of private individuals.
It follows from 4. that both orders rely on freedom of private
individuals understood as free choice of options from a given menu.
While this is obvious in Hayek’s market order, it is not immediately so
in Bentham.
We have discussed how Bentham thinks to co-opt the free choice
and intentionality of the inspector's family members and those of
visitors to the systemic work of inspection of the panopticon. This
unwaged work by the inspectors’ family members is one which is
unintended, exercised by free individuals operating within a context
that has been designed for the purpose of surveillance and labour
extraction.12 A similiar principle applies to the inmates.
Letter 13 titles “on the means of extracting labour.” These means
are based on putting the prisoners in condition to exercise a choice
12 “Neither the orders of the inspector himself, nor any interest which they may feel,or not feel, in the regular performance of his duty, would be requisite to find themmotives adequate to the purpose. Secluded oftentimes, by their situation, from everyother object, they will naturally, and in a manner unavoidably give their eyes adirection conformable to that purpose, in every momentary interval of their ordinaryoccupations. It will supply in their instance the place of that great and constant fundof entertainment to the sedentary and vacant in towns, the looking out of thewindow. The scene, though a confined, would be a very various, and thereforeperhaps not altogether an unamusing one.” (Bentham 1787: 20)
31
and therefore to reap a reward.13 Here, individual freedom of choice
disconnected, as in Hayek, from the collective freedom to choose the
constraints of that choice, amounts to a means to extract labour! 14 And
what an efficient mechanism of labour extraction is this:
What hold can any other manufacturer have upon his workmen,
equal to what my manufacturer would have upon his? What other
master is there that can reduce his workmen, if idle, to a situation
next to starving, without suffering them to go elsewhere? What
other master is there, whose men can never get drunk unless he
chooses they should do so? And who so far from being able to
raise their wages by combination, are obliged to take whatever
pittance he thinks it most for his interest to allow? (Bentham
1787: 76)
In Hayek, the question of freedom is at the core of his investigation,
and it assumes not so much the connotation of a moral theory (Gamble
1996: 41), but one of politics. This because the notion of freedom
informs the strategic horizon of his legacy. For example, he writes:
My aim will not be to provide a detailed program of policy but
rather to state the criteria by which particular measures must be
judged if they are to fit into a regime of freedom. . . .Such a
13 “If a man won’t work, nothing has he to do, from morning to night, but to eat hisbad bread and drink his water, without a foul to speak to. If he will work, his time isoccupied, and he has his meat and his beer, or whatever else his earnings may affordhim, and not a stroke does he strike but he gets something, which he would not havegot otherwise." (Bentham 1787: 67)14 The British Library copy of the 1787 edition has a stamp of the “Patent Office” rightabove the title of this letter "on the means to extract labour". It would be interestingto uncover the history of this "intellectual property right".
32
program . . . must grow out of the application of a common
philosophy to the problem of the day (Hayek 1960: 5).
Here Hayek's strategic horizon is clearly deployed. His philosophy of
freedom is a weapon that serves as yardstick to make judgements, to
measure concrete instances and evaluating them and see whether they
conform to a "regime of freedom" understood in liberal terms. In a
word, it is a liberal line on the sand. In this sense, Hayek is one of
those economists who provide a flexible and adaptable conceptual
grid, and is aware of this role. This conceptual grid represents the
glasses through which liberal and neo-liberal economists in different
contexts and times can filter out their reality, circumstances and
historical contexts, and adapt their basic principles to these realities
with policies.
This filter sees freedom as a relation between individuals as
defined by private property. For Hayek, liberty has nothing to do with
social individuals being able to define the conditions of their
interaction. Freedom is defined negatively, as the state of
`independence of the arbitrary will of another’ (Hayek 1960: 12).
Freedom is taken away from an individual when “in order to avoid
greater evil, he is forced to act not according to a coherent plan of his
own but to serve the ends of another. “ (Hayek 1960: 12) In this sense,
freedom is to be free to choose from a given menu, in which the
emphasis is not so much on the range of choices listed on the menu,
but on the "given character" of the menu:
33
`freedom' refers solely to a relation of men to other men, and
the only infringement on it is coercion by men. This means, in
particular, that the range of physical possibilities from which a
person can choose at a given moment has no relevance to
freedom. (Hayek 1960: 12)
But is the "given character" of the menu a form of coercion? Is the fact
that some choices are not contemplated such as the freedom to
choose the kind of rules of social interaction, the freedom to choose
not to be governed by abstract rules, but by mutual recognition, or
solidarity for example a way to force people into choosing the
remaining options? Hayek would not directly admit this, but his
philosophy has a crack that lead to a positive answer to the question.
Let us briefly explore this.
There are five fundamental freedoms in Hayek including
ownership of property.15 Gamble (1996) and others have noticed that
the freedom represented by ownership of property, is positively, rather
than negatively, defined.16 This implies that as far as property is
concerned, the negative, relational definition of freedom arises out of
property monopoly. In other words, constriction arises from
monopolising the means of existence, as revealed by his often-noted
15 These are “legal status as a member of the community; immunity from arbitraryarrest; the right to work at any trade; the right to free government and the right toown property” (Steele 1993: 33).16 Gamble (1996: 42) rhetorically asks: "In a society in which the opportunities to ownand acquire property were limited not by the arbitrary decision of rulers but by lawswhich allowed only members of one minority group to hold property, would it bejustifiable to advocate the redistribution of property to increase the total sum ofliberty?"
34
spring in the desert monopoly case (Hayek 1960:136).17 In this case
coercion arises when ownership of means existence reaches an extent
that it prevents others access to the means of existence.
In both Hayek and Bentham we have a clear emphasis on the
emergence of unintended consequences out of given parameters,
rules. Whether these are embedded in a designed architecture
(Bentham) or the (naïvely believed) product of a evolutionary order
(Hayek), the point that interest both is the resulting system-like
mechanism of co-ordination. The system-like co-ordination can emerge
only if the individuals are allowed a sphere of freedom within which to
operate. For both Bentham and Hayek this mechanism is rooted on a
system of individual free-choice, but individual free-choice always
comes with a rigid given set of “constraints.” In the microcosm of
Bentham’s panopticon, this constraint is the result of an ingenious
project. In the organic system of Hayek’s market, constrains are
believed to be a naturally evolutionary result. Yet, in both cases,
individual freedom is the main condition for the system to operate at
maximum regime and turn out “individual plans” into social efficiency.
6. Individual confinement as systemic condition of individual
freedom.
Another similarity is that in both cases we have individual
confinement as a presupposed basis of the extent of their freedom. In
the case of the individuals of the panopticon, the cell's walls are the
17 See Gamble (1996: 42). See also the discussion in Kuhathas (1989).
35
physical barriers that allow the creation of confinement. The purpose
of "safe confinement" is to prevent escape and enforce labour. Safe
confinement isolates the inspected from each other in order to dash
their hope, and dangerous “concert among minds” (Bentham 1787: 32)
which would overpower the guards. In the case of Hayek, the barriers
are social, and constructed in the forms of property rights. In both
cases however, the very existence of these barriers are naturalised.
7. Mechanism of co-ordination is "invisible" to individuals.
Another similarity is the notion that the co-ordinating power, the
one that distributes punishments and rewards to individual
singularities, is invisible. In both cases, there is an automatic
mechanism that co-ordinates individual subjectivities, and in both
cases the latter do not relate to each other directly but through the
mediation of other things. In the case of the panopticon, it is the
central power of the inspectors' apparatus that mediates between
individuals and thus co-ordinates the division of labour of a multitude.
In Hayek’s case, it is the diffused power of money and market
indicators that does the mediation.
8. The role of “shadowy projections”
Finally, both these mechanisms use projections of real life
activity as data to feed the mechanism of control and co-ordination. In
Bentham’s panopticon, they are the mechanical products of an
ingenious architectural design. In Hayek, prices fulfil the same role.
36
There is of course an important difference between the two
mechanisms. The knowledge embedded by market pricing in Hayek is
knowledge that all individuals can in principle use (Gray 1998: 38),
while the one yielded by the shadowy projections of the panopticon do
not. But this difference is ultimately the difference in how the
“watchtower” is constituted in the two systems. We have to understand
the watchtower as the centre of disciplinary power, as the dispenser of
punishment and rewards. While in Bentham the watchtower is a
material physical presence, that is pre-supposed and stands outside
individuals subjectivities, in Hayek’ market order the centre of
disciplinary power is the emergent property of individual competitive
interaction. The knowledge embedded in Bentham’s shadowy
projections gives the inspectors in the watchtower the same thing that
market prices give to competing agents on the market: “systemic or
holistic knowledge, knowledge unknown and unknowable to any of the
elements of the market system, but given to them all by the operation
of the system itself.” (Gray 1998: 38).
Conclusion: The market order as a Fractal-Panopticon
This overlapping between Bentham's and Hayek's apparently
opposite systems of co-ordination of social labour opens up an
understanding of the current global market order under construction
as in fact imbued with the property of panopticism. It is certainly not
this the place to investigate this further. Suffice this to say that
following Bentham, it is possible to understand the latter as a modality
37
of power that rests on the principle of “to see without being seen”,
made possible by a flow of information that turns real subjects and
activities into data, shadowy projections of real subjects. Combining
these principles of panopticism with its property of modularity and
Hayek’s characteristics of the market as co-ordinating mechanism of
private individual's actions, we can define the neoliberal project as one
aiming at the construction of a system of interrelated virtual
"inspection houses", which I called somewhere else, "fractal
panopticon" (De Angelis 2001). In this project, individuals and
networks of individuals, such as firms, industrial sectors, cities,
nations, regions, etc. relate to a “watchtower” which sees, classifies,
strike, punish and rewards according to the modality of the market.
The watchtower of this fractal-panopticon of the neoliberal age is
invisible, but its effects are tangible and operate through a process of
competition. In this sense, the watchtower is an emergent property of
competitive markets, in which Hayek's "competition that goes on all the
time" embeds the systemic compulsory functions of Bentham's central
tower. It must be pointed out that as in Bentham's panopticon, the role
of the planner in the fractal-panopticon is to provide the design of a
mechanism, which is then left to operate out of its internal logic of
power between inspectors and inspected. Neoliberal policies can thus
be regarded as attempts to define the conditions of interaction among
private individuals, by extending and defending the realm of
enclosures and competitive interaction.
38
Bentham however gives us a further insight. His panopticon is a
place of safe custody, i.e. safe confinement preventing escape, and
labour. (Bentham 1787: 31). Safe confinement is entirely built around
the fact that inmates are isolated from each other that is
communication among them is prevented. The control of
communication among inmates is here the key factor, all other hard
ingredients (thickness of wall, etc.) seems to be in the background.
There are two reasons for Bentham's strategic choice of power's control
of communication, and these are the ability to reduce inmates
individual hope of escape from their condition, and established power
attempt to avoid dangerous “concert among minds”.18 In the condition
of the neoliberal fractal-panopticon, the reduction of hope brought
about by the panseé unique of our age seems to have received the first
blows by new counter-globalisation movements that have begun to
question competition as mechanism of co-ordination and instead
explore new forms of communication and "concert among minds". By
building bridges across political issues and subjectivities, women,
labour, environmentalists, farmers and other movements are
18 “Overpowering the guard requires an union of hands, and a concert among minds.But what union, or what concert, can there be among persons, no one of whom willhave set eyes on any other from the first moment of his entrance? Undermining walls,forcing iron bars, requires commonly a concert, always a length of time exempt frominterruption. But who would think of beginning a work of hours and days, withoutany tolerable prospect of making so much as the first motion towards it unobserved?”(Bentham 1787: 32) In letter 8 Bentham addresses the issue of how can thisconfinement be applicable “to the joint purposes of punishment, reformation, andpecuniary economy.”? Because it may be disputable that solitude may serve a purposeto reformation. But “In the condition of our prisoners . . .you may see the studentsparadox, nunquam minus solus quam cùm solus [never less alone than when alone]realized in a new way; to the keeper, a multitude, through not a crowd; tothemselves, they are solitary and sequestered individuals.” (Bentham 1787: 35)
39
increasingly faced by the problem of exploring and thinking about new
ways of social co-ordination that move beyond the one inspired by
Hayek's market order and Bentham's panopticon. To do so however,
they will face the greatest challenge of all, and this is to redefine a
practice of freedom that break with the one that simply sees it as free
choice from a given menu. It is time now to talk about what is on the
menu!
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